TURKISH-IRAQI BORDER - "They shoot at us
every night, from up there," Turkish Captain Imre
said, pointing to the forbidding heights where
Kurdish separatist fighters sustain a war of
attrition. "Not really to kill us, but to harass
our troops and let us know they're still there."
A patrol of a dozen Turkish conscripts
lumbered up the snow-blanketed ridge to their
small base perched at the edge of a steep
precipice; Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq lay on
the other side. They were fully exposed, and
didn't seem to care.
A mixture of
isolation and routine had left them listless and
starved for contact - be it
the rare Western visitor or a stubborn enemy that
lives in the shadows above.
"We are always
waiting, waiting to make contact with the
terrorists," said the Turkish captain, who
requested that his last name be withheld, as one
of his men used a mirror to check the underside of
a Kurdish-owned vehicle for contraband. Another
verified passengers' identification cards. "We
also know that people who help the rebels, friends
and relatives, must come through here all the
time."
The stalemate that holds at his
post on the Turkey-Iraq border has ruptured
elsewhere in the region. According to military
officials, 10 Turkish troops and 29 Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas have been killed
since Turkey launched an aggressive 10,000-strong
operation last week against the rebels as winter
snows begin to thaw.
The PKK has fought
Turkish forces in southeastern Turkey for more
than three decades with the aim of carving out an
ethnic homeland that includes territory on both
sides of the Turkey-Iraq border. The PKK,
considered a terrorist group by the United States
and the European Union, declared a unilateral
ceasefire last October, but it was rejected by
Ankara.
Violence has claimed more than
30,000 people since the separatist campaign began
in 1984, and shows signs of flaring up again as
Turkish and Kurdish politicians face off over the
future of northern Iraq.
Last weekend, a
surge in political tensions moved Iraqi officials
to move an international conference on Iraq to
Egypt from Istanbul as scheduled. The row began
when Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani
threatened to cause unrest among Kurds living
inside Turkey if Ankara interfered with its
internal affairs. Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan shot back that Barzani had
"exceeded the limits" and "will be crushed by his
own words", adding that "northern Iraq is making a
very serious mistake with these steps".
This pledge took on new meaning on
Thursday when hawkish General Yasar Buyukanit,
head of Turkey's military general staff, said a
military operation in northern Iraq "must be made"
to rout the estimated 4,000 PKK militants hiding
there. Turkey maintains it has the right to make
such an incursion under international law,
although it has reportedly sought permission from
the Baghdad government.
The Iraqi
constitution calls for a referendum to be held to
determine the status of multi-ethnic Kirkuk by the
end of this year, one the Kurdish Regional
Government (KRG) expects will make the oil-rich
city part of the northern autonomous region.
Turkey fears the financial windfall will give the
KRG greater leverage to push for a fully
independent state that could incite separatist
fervor among the 14 million Turkish Kurds.
Turkey also alleges that PKK guerrillas
continue to use northern Iraq as a staging ground
for cross-border attacks. Military officials say
they have new intelligence about plans for
stepped-up PKK attacks inside Turkey starting next
month.
To stem rebel activity in the
southeastern Turkish badlands - and sympathizers
trafficking arms on their behalf - Turkey
maintains a lopsided military presence in the
region. Checkpoints are frequent, with stops less
than every 10 kilometers on some remote stretches
of road. The repressive atmosphere feeds the
frustrations of Turkish Kurds who say they are
stranded in the country's poorest corner without
jobs or state-sponsored services. "The
Americans got rid of Saddam [Hussein] but now we
are stuck with the Turks, one devil after
another," said Fazal, a Kurd from the southeastern
city of Hakkari active in the largest pro-Kurdish
party, the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik
Toplum Partisi, or DTP). The central government
has failed to give Kurds fair treatment, he
alleged, noting that he can barely afford to keep
three of his children in school. Two years ago his
oldest son "went into the mountains", meaning he
joined the PKK.
The government counters
that it is redoubling efforts to integrate the
southeast. Among other projects, local officials
note that roads have been improved and expanded,
hundreds of low-income housing units have been
constructed, and a new program is in motion that
gives poor families a stipend every month for each
child to cover education expenses.
After
making big promises during his election campaign
that many Kurds insist have yet to bear fruit,
Erdogan paid another high-profile visit to the
region late 2005 in which he guaranteed quick
results. But more and more Kurds are emigrating
across the border to northern Iraq for a fresh
start, buoyed by the distant prospect of an
independent Kurdistan; others opt to take up the
gun with the same idea in mind.
Further
down the road that snakes through the rugged
borderlands, the Kurdish village of Ortakoy
embodied the symptoms of neglect: open sewage
drains, broken tarmac, and makeshift hovels from
which haggard faces peered out. The only one
smiling was a young boy, naked from the waist
down, who aimed a toy gun fashioned out of a tree
branch at passers-by.
"Bang, bang," he
mouthed, and one could not help but think that
some day he might also head to the mountains.
Jason Motlagh is deputy foreign
editor at United Press International in
Washington, DC. He has reported freelance from
Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for various
US and European news media.
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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